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K-9 AND COMPANY: A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND to THE KWICKI KOALA SHOW
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K-9 AND COMPANY: A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND
(1981)
BBC
25 YEARS before Russell T Davies, a DR WHO spin-off! And what an appalling one at that. Eminently kickable robot mutt on wheels teams up with Best Ever Companion Sarah Jane to battle a script of the most diabolical propotions, capped with a theme by uber-fan uber-lord uber-porker Ian Levene. Titles showed Sarah Jane doing stupid non-journalist things like going jogging. Introduced dopey "sidekick" Brendon. All wrong in so many ways. Thankfully, it wasn't recommissioned. Neither was its parent series a few years later.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."MISTRESS! MISTRESS! GRAVEL DETECTED! I CANNOT MOVE DURING THIS NEXT SCENE!"
KATE AND TED'S SHOW
(1987)
GRANADA
WHAT RICHES lie ahead of us: it's KATE "WROTE THE THEME FOR SURPRISE SURPRISE" ROBBINS and her brother TED "DIDN'T" ROBBINS, together in their own "show" doing impressions of Sarah Ferguson and Derek Hatton. They said it'd be over Christmas, and unlike the First World War, it was.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."IMAGINE IF DEBBIE GREENWOOD AND MRS THATCHER CHANGED PLACES. IT MIGHT GO SOMETHING LIKE THIS..."
KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY
(1980-83)
THAMES
STALWART OF that post-Corrie "bathos but pathos" comedy slot, here were the Rush family whiling away the recession in posh Highgate with head of the household Dudley (ROBERT GILLESPIE) trying to earn money from drawing comic strips starring Barney the Bionic Bulldog while Muriel (PAULINE YATES) did the dishes and daughters Susan and Jacqui slept around. Or so it was implied, for this was Thamesland, and 8pm at that, so only a lewd, louche remark was allowed. Usually, for comic effect, in the presence of Dudley's boss, the ever-dapper, GLYN HOUSTON.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...FORMAT REFIT SAW GLYN MOVE IN FOR ONE SERIES, WHICH UNCOINCINDENTALLY WAS ALSO THE LAST
THE KEITH HARRIS AND ORVILLE SHOW
(1980s)
BBC
TOOTHY BALDING-PERMED ventriloquist wields pathologically feeble green duck in a nappy on one hand and nasally-blocked orange "cheeky" monkey on the other. "Now it's time to welcome our very special guests: Matt Bianco!"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I 'ATE THAT DUCK!" NEVER WAS A TRUER WORD SPOKEN.
AMERICAN EXPORTED choice of viewing to the Nine O'clock News. Long-running series revolved around "character" called, ho ho, Kelly Monteith, whose "life" formed the basis of endless relationship observation schticks and LARRY SANDERS-esque dressing room inserts. "Wife" was GABRIELLE DRAKE.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NOT SURE THAT LAST SKETCH REALLY SOCKED HOME" - AYE TO THAT
KEN DODD AND THE DIDDYMEN
(1969-72)
BBC
SUNDAY TEATIME timewastery with the titular buck-toothed tax dodger presiding over the puppet inhabitants of Knotty Ash. Jam butty mines, gravy wells, Dicky Mint and snuff quarries passed in lieu of jokes.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BOB "RENTAGHOST" BLOCK STANDS ACCUSED
THE KENNY EVERETT VIDEO/TELEVISION SHOW
(1978-88)
THAMES/BBC
SHOUTY SCOUSE sound effects nerd herein masquerading as A1 kids comedy champion. VIDEO was done on a shoestring but made a virtue of it, using camera crew for audience, globular titsci-fi Captain Kremmen cartoon (by Cosgrove-Hall) plus bank of TVs, gags based on Quantel effects console and the baiting of the "mates" Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury who appeared for bugger all. Aresing around with Thames continuity was icing on the cake. SHOW was for the Beeb and cemented legendary roster of characters: Gizzard Puke ("but don't we all?"), Cupid Stunt (Michael Parkinson's corpse, "best possible taste" legs routine), Marcel Wave ("my little rubik cubes", rubber jaw), Sid Snot ("Snot Rap", fag-catching), Reg Prescott ("Our old friend the cross-cut saw"), that clown who "drew things", outraged bloke in bowler hat, exploding head bloke, "Round 'em up, put 'em in a field and bomb the bastards!" shoulder pads general, Brother Lee Love (giant hands, etc.) and copious use of white limbo backgrounds and blue screen. Futurist "I Like Electro People" theme. Oh, and the Bee Gees. BARRY CRYER co-wrote the lot.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NOW ON THE BBC IT'S TIME TO HAVE A COMPETITION/AND YOU MAY OR MAY NOT ENTER IT/UPON YOUR OWN VOLITION"
UNCLE PETER PURVES and his brainbox mate JACK STITES narrate junior motorcross time trial competitons on the muddiest courses in the land, replete with bunny hops, ramps, see-saws and the requisite pile of old cars and oil drums as obstacles. Utterly inappropriate but still ace theme tune played on fairground organ. Primetime exposure for St. John's Ambulancemen, if nothing else.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NO, THE FLAG'S GONE UP, THAT'S ANOTHER TWENTY SECONDS"
A KICK UP THE EIGHTIES
(1981-82)
BBC
AUNTIE'S FIRST tryst with alternative comedy, very much a first-date-down-the-park affair with dependable chaperone RICHARD STILGOE initially on hand to becalm bemused Home Counties viewers. In fact, what with ROGER SLOMAN and MIRIAM MARGOYLES also in attendance, it was really only the presence of RIK MAYALL as Brummie investigative reporter Kevin Turvey to mark proceedings down as in any way "alternative" (TRACEY ULLMAN dressing up doesn't count). Second series found Stilgoe substituted for ROBBIE COLTRANE as demented Scots Orangeman Mason Boyne (doing a rendition of Deck Of Cards: "The Eight of clubs reminds me of the bacon and eggs I eight for breakfast!"), equally mad Master of Dundreich ("Let me help you out of those wet things, my dear." "But they're not wet." "Bucket!" [SPLOSH!] "Let me help you out of those wet things, my dear"). Just over a million people wrote the script. Just under a million tuned in. Bequeathed LAUGH??? I NEARLY PAID MY LICENCE FEE.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."VAT IS ON THE UP AGAIN, WHICH CAN ONLY MEAN ONE THING (CUE PIANO)..."
JAMES HAZELDINE gets placed in charge of various delinquents. Each week one child runs away/steals an apple/tells tales, only to return with pangs of guilty conscience, followed by earnest conference to resolve issues.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."SO WHAT HAVE WE ALL LEARNED?"
THE KIDS FROM 47A
(1973-75)
BBC
REDOUBTABLE KIDS sitcom from the keep-smiling-through school of jokery. Downbeat "sit" finds four children living alone, thanks to the father dying and the mum being in hospital (joining her husband for the second series). "Com" derived from wacky junior funsters: George (RUSSELL LEWIS), who became antisocial one week and donned a German helmet with a badly-scrawled swastika on it; Jess (CHRISTINE MCKENNA) who somehow worked in an office; Binny (GAYNOR HODGSON) who wanted to become a writer; and Willy (NIGEL GREAVES) who was the youngest and therefore a pest. Somehow they ran the house, paid the bills, did the washing etc. Enemy was anyone who tried to destroy this delightful domestic harmony, i.e. the child welfare officer. All rather grim and grisly, with laughs, like much else in Britain at the time, being in drastically short supply.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...STUPID OPENING TITLES INVOLVED THE KIDS BUMPING INTO EACH OTHER IN THE STREET
KIDS OF DEGRASSI STREET/ DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH
(1980s)
CBC
CANADIAN SOAPERY that became a regular Children's BBC post-school distraction. First incarnation found the eponymous small urban east-coast location peopled with kids making their way through life in familiar harsh realities of crazy, scary modern day world with moral lessons well to the fore, usually involving a disabled weakling/ethnic minority/brainaic being picked upon then "coming through" at some pertinent plot point. Graduated into DEGRASSI JUNIOR HIGH ("Wake up in the morning/Feeling sad and lonely/Gee, I gotta go to school!") and the post-NEWSROUND slot thanks to more teenage concerns ("She's so flat the walls are jealous!").
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...EPISODE DISCUSSING CONDOMS BUMPED TO DEF II FOR FEAR THE COUNTRY WOULD EXPLODE
ORIGIN UNCERTAIN for this bunch of tales involving crime-cracking youths led by the titular teenager. Ubiquity of bad haircuts at least confirmed mid-70s follicle foul-ups were a worldwide disease.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BASED ON BOOKS "KIM THE DETECTIVE" AND "KIM AND THE BURIED TREASURE"
MINDER RIP-OFF with characters called King and Castle behaving like the king and the castle on a chessboard. And one was a King. And the other lived in a castle. Probably.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AND ONE WAS NIGEL PLANER
WEIRD SPEEDWAY freakery for kids done in a SWEENEY style but with PETER DUNCAN as the lead. Eponymous monarch is in fact a restaurant in seaside town of Barton, wherein dwell a mob of black-leathered bastards led by a pre-chequered-suited Pete who run a protection racket but which somehow get caught up in backhanded motorbike mallarkeys.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WELFARE ORANGE ABOUNDED
KING OF THE CASTLE
(1977)
HTV WEST
UTTERLY BAFFLING childathon charting the fortunes of boring posh teenager Roland Wright (PHILIP DA COSTA) who gets stuck in a lift which crashes down an elevator shaft in his block of council flats and delivers him into an alternative world where all the lovable locals have sinister alter egos and his stepmum becomes a witch. Typical HTV hokum, but considered too "controversial" by ITV suits for weekday fare and shunted into Sunday teatimes instead. Written by Dr Whoers Bob Baker and Dave Martin. FULTON MACKAY looked in as a mad scientist.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...TITULAR KING WAS ROLAND, BUT (INEVITABLY) ONLY AFTER HE'D LEARNED SOME OF LIFE'S AWKWARD LESSONS
KING ROLLO
(1980s)
FILMFAIR
CUT-OUT ANIMATION beloved of lunchtime schedulers, wherein a mentally-retarded, erm, childlike monarch tried his best to rule his subjects but kept cocking up, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering courtiers and a mischevious cat. The latter was the best thing in it, by dint of always arseing around in the background. Cheery fare (do you see?) in the style of MR BENN, with RAY BROOKS once again on pipes duty.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...STATUS OF RELATIONSHIP WITH QUEEN GWEN WHO "LIVED NEXT DOOR" UNCLEAR
NIGEL "QUATERMASS" KNEALE'S one attempt at comedy, perhaps wisely. Eponymous repairman TONY HAYGARTH owns a crappy electrical repair shop, helped/hindered by his mate COLIN "THE OTHER LESTRADE" JEAVONS and cosy wife PATSY ROWLANDS. One day, attractive PRUNELLA GEE moves in upstairs, causing palpitations in Tony and Col, but her standoffishness is baffling until Tone discovers she's actually - of course! - an alien from the planet Mercury, surviving on said planet by living underground. Hilarity ensues, naturally, over the teacakes and inter-planetary tittle-tattle. Prunella resembles Barbarella-style creature, i.e. almost naked. No wonder Tone joins her for a turn around the galaxy. First she wants his help to save her planet from hostile forces, but then falls in love with him and wants him to marry her and be king of Mercury. She even gives him a special talisman to rub when he wants to contact her, except it's disguised as a two-pence piece, so frequently gets lost/accidentally spent with more of that hilarity just around the corner. Whole thing never properly resolved.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...GAINS PITY POINTS OVER HITCH-HIKER FOR NOT FEATURING ENDLESS POSH PEOPLE STANDING AROUND IN QUARRIES
THE KIT CURRAN RADIO SHOW
(1984-86)
ITV/CHANNEL 4
DENIS LAWSON was your self-same self-obsessed local DJ with a big mouth and even bigger ego (these "sits" write themselves!) whose boss BRIAN WILDE fires him, presumably for Denis being above him in the credits (see LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE), forcing Denis to set up his own pirate station broadcasting to the Brentford massive before such things existed. Character kept lifesize cardboard cutouts of himself, besides trying to shag woman in neighbouring office and insulting fat, slobbish engineer.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."ULTRAFANTASTICO!" NOT REALLY
"MUM! THERE'S a gyppo on the telly!" Much mid-70s mirth was to be derived from this at-the-time preposterous sight of a tinker turning up on children's TV, moreover one fulfilling all the stereotypes about travellers which you'd heard about/impersonated in the playground. Hence Kizzy, for it is she, spits and shouts and fights and doesn't wash and doesn't know how to use a toilet. When her travelling caravan (all the stereotypes were here!) burns down she has to go to school and naturally gets picked on. Then her horse dies. Then she gets nits (probably). Not the best way of tackling this kind of subject over beans on toast.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."THEMS OUGHT TO BE LOCKED AWAY, THEMS IS!"
KNIGHT RIDER
(1983-87)
GLEN A. LARSON
RARE CHARACTER study for EDWARD "THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR" MULHARE.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...KNIGHT BOAT WAS BETTER
WELCOME READER, bold but fair/in search of truths about KNIGHTMARE/Twas not a show for rakish souls/or those disposed t'ward scoring goals/Instead the bookish and the plain/were catered for by this rum game/From provincial schools across the land/came bowlcut teens in T-shirts bland/arriving keen to pits their minds/'gainst foes of faint and virtual kind/Their host: one Dungeon Master, brown of face/disposed t'ward garments sporting lace/called Treguard Dunshelm, who spent his time/reciting tortured lines of rhyme/The kids would never dare to try it/His real name was HUGO MYATT/One child, thinking to himself "Fuck it"/would then put on a giant bucket/and disappear from the others' view/materialising in studio 2/whereupon a computerised trial/would wax and wain for much a-while/"Two steps to the left!" would cry the crew/while bucket-kid meandered through/stone-walled rooms filled with freaks/to whom only he had power to speak/"Life force low!" boomed Treguard whenever/the kids had to get their shit together/and pick up a jug or piece of fruit/all in order to re-boot/their chance of finding treasures rare/save leaving Anglia TV bare/of anything but the chance to say/"We'll be on telly a week today!"/Best forgotten are the likes/of Pickle, Treguard's twatty tyke/who arsed around in later years/when growing cancellation fears/resulted in a show enwrapped/in wanky gimmicks that were crap.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ADDING TO THE LATTER FARCE/WAS TALKING WALL-BEAST GRANITE-ARSE
HAVEN'T HAD one of these for a while: another totalitarian sci-fi futuristic runaround depicting a Britain of the future gone to the dogs and run by crypto-fascist JOHN "ALL IN GOOD FAITH" WOODVINE thanks to a fleet of 80s mainstay black helicopters. Blake off of BLAKE'S 7 was the leader of the rebels and had a son called Gervase, both of whom try to avoid the fate doled out to the Archbishop of Canterbury (stabbed) and the Royal Family (executed). Kids fare, believe it or not, which would perhaps explain the presence of PATRICK TROUGHTON as a cuddly Arthur figure.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SPOILER: EVIL GOVERNMENT BROUGHT DOWN BY THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN
KNOCK KNOCK!/WAKE UP SUNDAY!
(1981-84)
BBC
FAR-TOO-EARLY SUNDAY morning Godbothery for children with the word spread to the masses by the likes of DANA, LESLEY JUDD and - inevitably - CHRISTOPHER LILLICRAP. "Songs and stories from God's wide world" promised. Christ.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LITERALLY
KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER
(1974)
MCA
NONSENSE MONSTER mithering with DARREN MCGAVIN as the titular malingerer, unearthing evidence of zombies/werewolves/demons on the rampage to universal indifference.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AMONG THOSE DOING THE INDIFFERING: PHIL SILVERS, TOM SKERRIT, RICHARD "JAWS" KIEL AND SORRELL "BOSS HOGG" BROOKE
SID AND Marty Krofft, the costumiers/puppeteers who designed the BANANA SPLITS and brought the world of HR PUFNSTUF to life, also exported a fair few other weirdo shows to American (and later British) screens. Such as:
LIDSVILLE - Similar to Pufnstuf, wherein a boy is transported to a magical world where all the inhabitants are hats.
BUGALOOS - British bug people who ran a radio station and fought the evil Martha Raye.
WONDERBUG - Beat up dune buggy (Schlep Car) who was transformed by a magic horn into a crime fighting super dune buggy.
SIGMUND THE SEAMONSTER - Casper-type live action about a sea monster who wanted to be friends but always had to fight of mean older brothers.
SPACE NUTS - Sci-fi comedy featuring a pair of bumbling explorers, with a moon shot like space capsule.
BIGFOOT AND WILD BOY - Boy raised in the woods by Bigfoot, both fought crime in the wilderness SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN sound effects.
ELECTRA WOMAN AND DYNA GIRL - BATMAN-esque affair only with the gender reversal thing.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...DAYS OF WHINE AND DOZES
THE KRYPTON FACTOR
(1977-95)
GRANADA
SUPERLATIVE GREY CELLS weeknight workout, hosted by the unflappable Uncle GORDON BURNS in a quest to find "the UK's superperson". Anyone could enter, so long as you had an IQ of 200-odd and could run a marathon on a wet and windy day in a colour co-ordinated jumpsuit. Contestants were always middle management types - computer analysts, personnel supervisors, recruitment consultants - from middle England, and who were put through rounds in never-changing, uber-strict order:
1) MENTAL AGILITY: "What day is ten days before March 3rd" quizzed Gordon through headphones to aid concentration.
2) RESPONSE: Contestants must land a massive fuck-off expensive piece of aircraft - in a simulator, "thankfully!"
3) OBSERVATION: Everyone sits in chairs and watches a short film, before getting the old SCREEN TEST "what happened then?", "What did he have in his hand?" stuff. Initially these were archive clips, but later became more full-blown specially-staged comedy skits with the likes of TONY SLATTERYand KATE COPSTICK or STEVE COOGAN doing impressions.
4) PHYSICAL AGILITY: Over "a course that demands respect", the contestants try their luck on an adventure playground-style combination of balance beam, tunnel, tarpaulin, climbing net and the obligatory "death slide" finale into (hopefully) a pool of shitty water.
5) INTELLIGENCE: In which the contestants have but a couple of minutes to assemble a fiendishly-complicated perspex model while Gordon provides viewers with whispered asides ("The key to solving the whole puzzle is to start at the bottom")
6) GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Your bog standard buzzer round, only with each contestant in starkly-lit profile for added tension.
Completing the majestic mix was the way everyone got a "Krypton Factor of..." instead of points, and the imperial theme tune by The Art Of Noise.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."WHO WAS THE KNIGHT ON THE RIGHT OF THE KNIGHT ON THE LEFT OF THE KNIGHT OPPOSITE MORDRED?"
STOP THAT sniggering. These was strange pre-historic Jappo/French cartoon business that became ubiquitous summer holiday viewing for a while, charting the adventures of the eponymous small cave-man child and his mates, along with - quite possibly - a comedy mammoth calf.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...GO-GO
KUNG FU
(1973-76)
WARNER BROTHERS
DAVID CARRADINE, short of tongue and long of mumbling, loafs around 19th Century America partaking of much wandering and standing still while violence aplenty goes on, before embarking on a climactic martial arts display when he's finally pushed too far. Slow motion deployed when impractical punching required. "Personal quest" to help others. Boring flashbacks to life as a child afforded viewer many toilet breaks.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."LISTEN! THE WIND IS SPEAKING!"
THE KWICKI KOALA SHOW
(1983)
DEPATIE-FRELENG
MUCH PANTHER-ESQUE plot reheating came courtesy of this dreary selection of characters. Titular mutt is chased by wolf, can "move quickly" and sounds like a limp Droopy; "Crazy Claws" is sub-Groucho Marx wisecracker in constant trouble with fur trapper and forest ranger in a Jellystone-style National Park (a nugget of nature knowledge was ham-fistedly plopped into each adventure); and Dirty Dawg was an unclean mongrel.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."CREATED BY TEX AVERY!" YELPED THE TITLES. SURE, BUT NOT WRITTEN OR DIRECTED BY HIM, HENCE HALF-ARSED RESULTS
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